Download "collectd-4.5.2.tar.bz2"
You can find the answers to these questions on the FAQ page.
  • It doesn't work. Where can I find diagnostic output?
    Version 3.* writes warnings and error messages using the syslog(3) facility. Depending on your system the syslog-daemon writes these messages to files and/or sends them to another host. On most GNU/Linux distributions the place to look at is either /var/log/syslog or /var/log/messages.
    Version 4.0 and later comes with the logfile and syslog plugins which can be used to write status messages to a file or send it to the syslog daemon.
  • Some lines of the config seem to be ignored..?
    Yes, that's a known bug. You probably have one or more white spaces at the end of the lines being ignored.
    This is a bug in the library used by collectd 3.* to parse the configfile. Versions 4.0 and later use a different library and don't have this problem.
  • Can I adjust the interval in which data is collected?
    Yes, since version 3.9.0 this can be set at compile-time. Keep in mind, though, that this will change the layout of the generated RRD-files. Also, clients and servers should have the same setting here to avoid interesting results.
    Version 4.0 allows this setting to be adjusted in the configfile.
  • I try to use the ping-plugin, but keep getting the message "`ping_host_add' failed.". What's the matter?
    In order to generate ICMP packets one needs to open a so called "RAW socket". On most UNIX systems only the superuser (root) may open such sockets.
    In addition, some virtualization environments, such as VServer and Solaris Zones have been reported to cause some trouble.
  • Who receives the multicast traffic?
    I don't know. That entirely depends on your network setup. By default collectd uses "site local" addresses, that should not be routed to outside your AS. If that's really the case is up to you.
  • What does "Invalid value for config option `Mode': `Local'" mean?
    Is means that the mode "Local" is not available. Most likely the "librrd" library wasn't found. If you want to write to RRD-files install "librrd" or, if you already did that, use the --with-rrdtool option of the ./configure-script to point to the right direction.
  • How do I use --with-rrdtool?
    If you installed libraries in a non-standard (or non-system) path you need to specify them when running the configure script. Otherwise it will not find them and build the binaries without linking against the library.
    You need to set the PATH as given to the --prefix option when compiling the library. The script actually looks for the two subdirectories PATH/include and PATH/lib, so check for their existence if things don't work. If, for example, you installed RRDTool in /opt/rrdtool-x.y.z you need to run configure like this:
    $ ./configure --with-rrdtool=/opt/rrdtool-x.y.z
  • The apache-plugin reports the following error: apache: curl_easy_perform failed: Failed writing body. What's wrong?
    The response received was too big and didn't fit into the buffer. Check the URL-option in the configfile. Especially check that the URL ends in "?auto": collectd requires the machine readable output generated by the Apache-plugin mod_status and will not work with anything else.
  • What do the version numbers mean?
    The version numbers consist of three numbers: The major- and minor-number and the patchlevel.
    • Versions with different major-numbers are basically not compatible. This means that the definitions of RRD-files or config-options have been changed or, in general, that the user has to do something in addition to install the new version. This is not nice and avoided when possible, but sometimes necessary to prevent old mistakes to become ancient mistakes. We try to provide migration scripts, though, to make a switch as easy as possible. See the v3 to v4 migration guide for details.
    • Versions with differing minor-numbers are backwards compatible, i. e. you can replace the lower version with the higher one and everything should still work. This means that features are added, but not removed or changed and that the default behavior does not change.
    • Versions with different patchlevels are both, forward- and backwards-compatible, because no new features have been introduced. The only difference between the two versions is one or more bugfixes, so you should generally install the higher version of the two.
  • I enabled the foo plugin using --enable-foo but now the build process fails. What's wrong?
    Since version 4.0.0 a server process doesn't need to load the plugins from which data should be received - in contrast to versions 3.*. This means, that plugins with unmet dependencies no longer have any purpose. So, we moved dependency checking into the configure script, starting with version 4.1.0. I. e. the configure script now automatically disables all plugins with unmet dependencies and enables all plugins whose dependencies are met.
    So, if a plugin is displayed as disabled, it's dependencies are not met. The normal way to get a plugin compiled is to install the missing dependencies and re-run the configure script.
    You can force it to be build using --enable-foo, but you need to know exactly what you are doing. If you do this you're out in the dark, cold woods and totally on your own!
  • The build process fails with "relocation R_X86_64_32 against `a local symbol' can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC". What's wrong?
    Many plugins have to be linked against libraries. A few of them (currently iptables, netlink and nut are known to be affected) link against libraries that are only available as "static libraries" in many distributions. Most distributions (e. g. Debian and SuSE GNU/Linux) do not compile static libraries with the "-fPIC" option. Thus they cannot be linked with shared objects compiled with "-fPIC". Some architectures (among them i386) do not seem to care about that and handle it in some (probably magic) way. However, other architectures (mostly 64bit like amd64 or hppa) cannot handle that and thus the compiler aborts with the error message mentioned above.
    To fix this issue, you need a version of the static library compiled with "-fPIC" (or a shared library). Ask your distributor to provide a suitable version of the library or compile it yourself.
    For more detailed information please refer to:
  • Solaris support is broken! The build aborts! Help!
    There are two known issues with Solaris, but both can be fixed relatively easy:
    If you build a 32bit binary, the configure script will (try to) enable LFS. This will result in an error which looks somehow like this:
    config.h:832:1: error: "_FILE_OFFSET_BITS" redefined
    Also, the swap-plugin has some problems of it's own with this:
    swap.c:197: warning: implicit declaration of function 'swapctl'
    swap.c:197: error: 'SC_AINFO' undeclared (first use in this function)
    The solution is to build a 64bit binary! If you build a 64bit binary, LFS is not needed and the swap plugin works as intended. To do this, pass the -m64 flag to the compiler (assuming you're using the Sun C compiler).
    Another problem is that by default Sun defines a version of getgrnam_r that isn't POSIX-compatible. To enable POSIX-compatibility pass the _POSIX_PTHREAD_SEMANTICS define to the compiler.
    Putting all together you need to pass the following flags to the configure-script:
    # Sun CC
    $ ./configure CFLAGS="-m64 -mt -D_POSIX_PTHREAD_SEMANTICS"
    Please note that we only test the Sun C compiler ourselves, but GCC may work, too. When using the GCC you need to substitute the -mt flag with the -pthreads flag. So if you use GCC the above invokation of ./configure becomes:
    # GCC
    $ ./configure CFLAGS="-m64 -pthreads -D_POSIX_PTHREAD_SEMANTICS"
    Thanks to Christophe Kalt for sharing his insights :)
  • Why is the CPU usage split up in so many files? Can I change that?
    The short answer is: That is because otherwise backwards compatibility would be impossible and you would have to re-create your files from scratch regularly. And, "no".
    The long answer and explanation of the short answer is: collectd runs on a variety of operating systems. Each operating system has it's own method for accounting CPU states, memory consumption, swap usage, and so on. If all these data sources where in one data set, every new supported operating system or any addition to an already supported operating system would mean that we need to modify the data set. This cannot be done without breaking backwards compatibility.
    To give you a few examples: Sometime in mid-2.6 the Linux kernel added some Xen-patches which provided a new CPU state: "steal time". When adding support for BSD systems we had to add "wired" memory. NFSv4 added some new procedures that NFSv3 didn't have, etc pp.
    That interface traffic has two data sources is different, because every operating system will account received and transmitted bytes. Likewise for the system load: The 1, 5, and 15 minute averages have been like that for ages and it's very unlikely that any weird UNIX does this different.
    Changing the layout of the data is not just a matter of changing the types.db file. That file describes the layout of the data submitted by plugins. The plugins don't need it - they know what data they submit. It's needed by the daemon and writing plugin to know how to store the data. If you mess with the file without knowing what you do, you will most likely end up with the data not being collected at all anymore.
  • Why doesn't collection.cgi draw foo graphs correctly?
    That script is meant as a starting point for own developments, not as a ready to use web frontend for RRD files written by collectd.
    It is just an example, because it's not really usable as it is. And it's not really useable, because we are UNIX developers and don't enjoy doing web stuff much. Working on the daemon is just so much more fun.. ;) So in the best of free / open source traditions: Patches welcome!
    There are alternatives, though. We've heard from various people using Cacti to render the graphs. Sergiusz Pawlowicz of the BBC has written CollectGraph, a macro for the MoinMoin wiki. And of course there's drraw.

First steps with collectd

This short and incomplete article should guide the novice user through the process of getting collectd to work. Pointers to the manpages are provided where appropriate.

Since no OS is like the other, I'll talk about my Linux Distribution, Debian, here. So the location of some files or commands to install packages may differ for your system.

Getting the daemon

There are currently two "major versions" of collectd: Version 3 and version 4. This is the first number of the full version number of a release. Version 3 is outdated and should not be used for new setups anymore, so make sure you get a version that starts with "4.*".

To get the executable binaries, you have the choice between two possibilities: Find a binary package or compile the source yourself. We strongly recommend to use a binary package unless you have very specific needs.

Get a binary package

For many Linux distributions there are binary packages. Please make sure not to use the ancient version 3 (Debian Etch ships version 3.10.4, for example). Pointers to available binary packages can be found on the download page.

Compiling the sources

If there is no binary package for your distribution, or the one existing is outdated, you can compile the sources. For that you will need to install the usual C-compiler (most likely called "gcc"), linker, and so on. Debian users can simply install the build-essential package:

# apt-get install build-essential

The daemon itself doesn't depend on any libraries, but the plugins that collect the actual values will. What libraries are needed for which plugins is documented in the README file. Install the necessary libraries:

# apt-get install librrd2-dev libsensors-dev libsnmp-dev ...

After installing the build dependencies, you need to get and unpack the sources:

# cd /tmp/
# wget http://collectd.org/files/collectd-x.y.z.tar.bz2
# tar jxf collectd-x.y.z.tar.bz2
# cd collectd-x.y.z

Now configure the sources with the usual:

# ./configure

After the configure-script is done it will display a summary of the libraries it has found (and not found) and which plugins are enabled. Per default, all plugins whose dependencies are met are enabled. If a plugin you want to use is missing install the required development package and run configure again.

Last but not least: Compile and install the program. Per default it will be installed to /opt/collectd. If you prefer another directory, call the configure script with the --prefix option.

# make all install
# cd /opt/collectd/

Configuration

The configuration will lie in <prefix>/etc/collectd.conf. It's manpage is collectd.conf(5). Open the file and pay particular attention to the LoadPlugin lines.

# vim etc/collectd.conf

Loading plugins

The LoadPlugin lines, that are commented out, belong to plugins that have not been built. Commenting them in will not work, because the plugin does not exist. But, you may want to disable some plugins, for example the csv plugin will not be of interest for people who just want to get pretty graphs. Actually, we recommend to comment out all plugins and then just comment in the ones you specifically want to have.

The following is a list of the very basic plugins and a short description:

Table of basic plugins and short descriptions
Name Type Description
logfile logging Writes log messages to a file or standard output
rrdtool output Writes data to RRD-files
csv output Writes data to CSV-files
cpu input Collects CPU usage
memory input Collects memory usage
interface input Collects traffic of network interfaces

Setting options

The Interval setting sets how often values are read. You should set this once and then never touch it again. If you do, you will have to delete all your RRD-files or know some serious RRDTool-magic!

Some plugins take an additional configuration. Of interest are the logfile and rrdtool plugins. Before setting anything explicitly, please read the relevant part of the collectd.conf(5) manpage. There are no undocumented options. The rrdtool plugin is especially prone of mis-configuration, please read the manual page especially careful when configuring this plugin.

Starting the daemon

If you're done configuring, you need to (re-)start the daemon. If you installed a binary package there should be an init-script somewhere. Under Debian, the command would be:

# /etc/init.d/collectd restart

Alternatively you can start the daemon "by hand". This is done by executing:

# /opt/collectd/sbin/collectd

Some plugins require root privileges to work properly. If you're missing graphs and/or see error messages that indicate insufficient permissions, restart collectd as root.

The daemon should now collect values using the "input" plugins you've loaded and write them to files using the "output" plugin(s). Any problems or interesting behavior is reported using the "log" plugin(s).

Congratulations, as far as collectd is concerned, you're all set! :)

Creating graphs

First off: It is not collectd's focus to generate graphs! The focus is to collect the values and write it to files or send it to another host over a network. But since we have to visualize the data somehow, too, we have been nice enough to throw a script that's good enough for us into the contrib/ directory. This script, however, is not part of collectd and not supported by us. It just happens to work sometimes.

That being said, here's how it's installed: In the contrib/ directory (or the directory /usr/share/doc/collectd/examples/ if you installed the Debian package) you will find a directory named collection3. This directory holds all the necessary files for the graph generation, grouped again in subdirectories. Copy the entire directory somewhere, where your web server expects to find something.

# cp -r contrib/collection3 /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
# cd /usr/lib/cgi-bin/collection3

In some of the subdirectories, you will find files named .htaccess. They (try to) configure the web server, so that the appropriate files are executed, others are denied to visitors and so on. Please make sure to set the Apache option AllowOverride to an appropriate value or move the configuration to the main apache configuration.

The script is written in Perl and requires a number of Perl modules to be installed. Many of them are shipped with the standard Perl distributions, but some you will need to install yourself. Here's a (hopefully complete) list:

If everything worked out alright, you can now browse your graphs at http://localhost/cgi-bin/collection3/bin/index.cgi or wherever you put the script. If you get an error, check Apache's error log. Common errors include wrong permissions on the files in bin/ (they need to be executable) and etc/ (needs to be readable by the web server). For web server specific problems, please refer to read this how-to on CGI scripts.

Good luck and have fun ;)